BY RICARDO LUJAN JR
Halloween Kills is the sequel to Halloween (2018) and the 12th installment in the Halloween franchise as a whole. After the success of Halloween (2018), does the sequel follow in its footsteps or stumble along the way? Time to find out.
Story
Halloween Kills (HK) is not a good movie when it comes to plot and coherent reasoning. HK falls into the trope of having characters make really dumb choices at every possible chance. It gets quite ridiculous as the characters themselves even mention how they will not make the mistake of being alone and will instead take the advantage of having numbers against Michael Myers. The same characters then proceed to split up and go solo at the worst possible moments. Many of the characters are not even likable in this film.
Most of the characters fall flat due to the dialogue. Many lines were repeated and multiple characters were repeating something that was said by someone else earlier in the movie. It really starts to stand out during the second half of the story.
Some scenes feel like a rehash of what was said earlier and the conversation either leads to the same point or nowhere at all. The acting in the film is nothing spectacular, but this has more to do with the script and dialogue not giving the actors anything to work with rather than the actors themselves being bad.
The only character that stands out in this film is Michael Myers himself. He is creepy and intimidating, as he should be. The best moments all come when Myers is on screen. While the story runs around in circles with no clear direction, the horror aspect of the film tries its hardest to salvage the watchability of the film
Horror
The Horror aspect of the film gets its own section due to the amount of care that went into it compared to the rest of the film. The movie does a great job of setting the atmosphere in the scenes where the viewer is supposed to feel scared.
The brutality of the kills is what contributes to the horror feeling. It truly feels as though Myers can come out of nowhere to kill someone. The first time Myers makes his appearance in HK sets the tone as to how bloody the entire movie will be.
The ruthlessness of some of the kills really stays with the viewer after seeing them. I can still vividly recall a couple of the scenes, even a few days after watching HK.
The sound design of the scenes does its job of filling the viewer with an anxious feeling. The use of the classic Myers theme fits in perfectly even to this day. One of the best things the movie does is the footsteps of Myers when he is near other characters. His footsteps are booming and prevent any sense of peace during scenes where Myers is involved.
Look and Sound
The look of this movie is a mixed bag of good and bad. There were some scenes where a lot of work went into them and were creatively shot. On the other hand, some scenes just seemed to be very low budget and boring.
Lighting was great throughout the entire experience which is nice to see. None of the scenes are too dark to the point of not being able to tell what is happening. Lighting in horror movies can change quite a bit of the viewer’s experience. If the lighting is super dark making it hard to see then it causes the viewer to be afraid of the possibilities that may happen in the darkness.
If the lighting is bright enough to see everything, then the horror comes from the actual thing happening on screen rather than the viewer’s imagination. The use of brighter lighting is the best way to go with HK because Myers is such an imposing scary character. It would be a shame to hide his action and brutal kills behind low lighting.
The sound design of HK is one of its best parts. The soundtrack of the film is great and fits perfectly with the scenes. The use of Myers’ iconic theme was very appreciated. The mixing of the audio was very good as well. There was no point where it was difficult to hear the dialogue over the music or other actions that were happening in the scene.
Conclusion
Halloween Kills is not a good movie. The plot is almost nonexistent with a horrible script and subpar acting. For the Halloween franchise, this film does almost nothing to move the franchise forward. It just feels like the story goes in a circle and winds up at the same spot it started at.
However, Halloween Kills is a good horror movie. As a viewer, it will ignite emotions of fear and anxiety as Myers stalks his way across the town of Haddonfield. Halloween Kills is currently playing at the AMC Theaters in Hays and is available on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.